The World That Was Ours

By Hilda Bernstein

Book Overview

A memoir of the events which led up to the 1964 Rivonia Trial, which saw Hilda Bernstein's husband's acquittal, but where Nelson Mandela and the men of Rivonia received life sentences. A passionate... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1906462097
• ISBN13: 9781906462093
• Release Date: December 2009
• Publisher: Persephone Books
• Length: 394 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.4" x 7.5"

Customer Reviews

An amazing tale of life in a police state

I was in 6th grade when Nelson Mandella was freed from prison, and I remember watching it on TV and understanding that this was a really good thing, because people in South Africa were really rascist and black people couldn't vote or do much of anything. It's sad to admit, but my knowledge of apartheid and of South Africa's history hasn't really grown much since then... I had always been under the impression that Apartheid was equatable with early 20th century Jim Crow laws. This book is a fascinating story of life in a police state, where even white people have no real human rights, where everything that you do or say can and will be used against you, and where even the idealists lose hope. In the midst of all this are Rusty and Hilda Bernstein, a politically connected couple (she was the first female and the first Communist member of the City Council) with an otherwise fairly normal middle class life (he is an architect, she is a housewife with 4 children). This book charts their experiences in the infamous Rivonia Trial, where Rusty was tried with Mandela and others captured in a raid on an anti-appartheid action group. Much of it really just takes your breath away. People may be held for 90 days without being charged (sound familiar?) and they are. Lawyers are too afraid to take on political prisoners, and for good reason (as we see with one in particular). The police conduct midnight raids, so if you sleep through the night you're one of the lucky ones. Through it all, the kids have to be sent off to school, the laundry must be done (in what may be the most gripping scene in the book), and friends and family must be protected. Even though you more or less know what will happen at the end of the book if you know anything about the Rivonia Trial, or even just read the author's biography blurb on the jacket, this book will still have you sitting on the edge of your seat. I read the whole thing in one sitting because I just couldn't put it down. I wholeheartedly recomend this book to absolutely everyone.